I wish you a fruitful journey next week, when you visit
China to apply ointment on the "beautiful face" of Sino-Indian
relations, which you observe has been marred by the "acne" of China's
military intrusion into the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector in Ladakh. You and the
prime minister have wisely downplayed the intrusion so far; inflammatory public
statements would only make a happy ending more elusive. But please do not
display the same forbearance in your official conversations in Beijing.

Be certain that the Chinese will blame these occasional
confrontations on the Indian army's insistence on building up forces and
infrastructure on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). You will hear that the best
way to de-escalate is an immediate mutual cap on troop numbers and military
infrastructure. Such an understanding, your counterpart will sagely observe,
can maintain the peace until a wiser generation can resolve the border dispute
(or, as India calls it, the border question).

Hon'ble Minister, do not allow yourself to be sidetracked
from the central issue of the moment: a flagrant violation of the status quo
through the occupation of territory that both sides claim. This is no routine
patrol incursion, which is common since both sides routinely patrol up to their
perceived boundaries in order to keep alive their claims. Instead, this is an
escalation that establishes "facts on the ground" that would materially
affect an eventual territorial settlement. Remember the Wangdung intrusion,
near Tawang, in 1986? That pocket, where the Chinese had pitched up a few
tents, much like they did at DBO last fortnight, continues to remain with them.

In contrast to the furious Indian response at Wangdung,
where the army built up forces aggressively to dominate the Chinese camp, the
Indian army has fallen in line with orders from the top, refraining from a
troop build-up or even tough talk that could shut the door to a face-saving
de-escalation. But remember, the Chinese style is to keep testing an opponent's
resolve. In DBO, China is "taking the temperature" again. You must
make it clear that --- even in the absence of a Wangdung-type troop build-up ---
all options remain on India's table. The "proportionality" that you
have advocated could involve a similar occupation of disputed territory by
Indian troops at a selected time and place.

Naturally Your Excellency would never use crude threats, but
a man of your sophistication would find the diplomatic language to indicate to
Beijing a red line --- consolidation of the intrusion. If the Chinese patrol
replaces tents with permanent shelters, the Indian army will conclude that they
intend to remain there through winter. In that case, it will be difficult for
the government to explain to voters why it is not reacting militarily to a
Kargil-style occupation of Indian territory.

Your counterpart will undoubtedly repeat the statement that
Chinese soldiers are on their own side of the LAC. Your response should be:
"Well, what do you believe is the alignment of the LAC? You cannot claim
simultaneously that your troops are on your side of the LAC; while also
refusing to share with us your perception of that line."

The starkest lesson of DBO is that, without mutual agreement
over where the LAC runs, or even "agreed disagreement" over both
sides' view of their frontier, the uncertainty becomes unmanageable. There is
the ever-present danger of routine patrols being seen as "intrusions",
and a new encampment like the Chinese one at DBO being seen as territorial
aggression, triggering an armed face-off.

Your Excellency, make clear to Beijing that it must exchange
maps with India on which both sides have marked what they perceive as the LAC.
For over 30 years now China has refused to spell out what it believes is the
LAC despite repeated requests from New Delhi since December 1981, when the
first round of boundary talks took place.

Article 10 of the solemn bilateral agreement of 1996 says:
"the two sides agree to speed up the process of clarification and
confirmation of the Line of Actual Control." China ignores this, as also
repeated Indian requests in meetings of the Joint Working Group (JWG).

China has benefited from this lack of clarity by continually
shifting its claim line westwards. Last Tuesday, foreign ministry spokesperson
Syed Akbaruddin said he had "asked the Chinese side to maintain status quo
in this sector, and by status quo I mean status quo prior to this
incident". The problem is that there are multiple status quos in this
area. China keeps changing its patrolling pattern and India is left guessing.
Today China can occupy practically any hilltop in southeastern Ladakh and claim
that it is on its own side of the LAC.

For all these reasons, Mr Khurshid, the ministry of external
affairs (MEA) cannot continue with its misplaced satisfaction at having
activated the joint consultative mechanism. While this talk shop convenes and
both sides reiterate boilerplate positions, the Chinese patrol remains in Raki
Nala.

Finally, Your Excellency, the timing of this incursion --- a
month before Premier Li Keqiang's visit - is hardly coincidental. China's new
regime is clearly testing New Delhi's resolve, checking to see whether the
MEA's wish to make the visit a success will induce it to meekly accept the
incursion at DBO. Your discussions in Beijing will set the tone for the next 10
years. We are confident you will flash the steel that your predecessor, SM
Krishna, did in reminding the Chinese that our sensitivities in J&K matched
Chinese sensitivities in Tibet; coming closer than any Indian official before
or after to reopening the Tibet question.

Sunday, 28 April 2013

Let me resurrect a long-running debate on this blog --- should India buy the Rafale or the F-35 Lightening II?

For recent Broadsword arrivistes, here's the context: I believe the IAF, and later the Indian Navy, should be buying the fifth generation F-35, not outdated dinosaurs like the Rafale or the Mig-29K. The F-35 is better, cheaper and operationally more relevant for us than the other two Gen-4 fighters. And it is a myth that Dassault or MiG will give us any more technology than Lockheed Martin and Boeing would.

But the most convenient argument deployed by opponents of the F-35 is that its development is hugely delayed. So which fighter's development isn't?

Here a video of the recent sea trials of the F-35B (the STO/VL variant, the most troublesome of the three variants, with the greatest design challenges) carried out early this month on the USS Wasp, off Newport, Virginia.

Doomsayers had predicted that vertical landing would burn holes in the deck and that the downwash would sweep sailors overboard. Well, bad news doomsayers, take a look at how close the sailors are standing to the landing aircraft.

The trials featured 74 vertical landings and short take offs over a three week period. No catapults, no tail hooks.

Saturday, 27 April 2013

A soldier's sacrifice. Capt Manish Singh of 9 Para (Special Forces) being awarded the Shaurya Chakra today for valour beyond the call of duty. Take a look at the face of everyone in this photo. That's what they feel about his sacrifice.

India's
ongoing build-up along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border
with China, has run into trouble at Daulat Beg Oldi in Ladakh, where - as in
the lead-up to 1962 - its operational ambitions have outpaced the
country's logistics. Today, a strong patrol from the People's Liberation Army
(PLA) has parked itself on territory India claims, benefiting from easy access
over a good Chinese road across the Depsang Plains. Meanwhile, the Indian
army's access to that area is mainly through a recently reactivated,
weather-dependent landing ground. Without the ability to build up force, the
army has little choice but to negotiate. The PLA will demand operational
concessions, most likely the withdrawal of Indian defences in some other
contested sector.

While
it is necessary to acknowledge this tactical weakness, it must not be allowed
to persist. Over the preceding decade, New Delhi has taken steps to translate
India's long-standing disadvantage on the LAC into parity. Additional forces
have been sanctioned, including a mountain strike corps, two mountain divisions
and two armoured brigades; and forces have been relocated to the LAC from
Kashmir and the Indo-Pakistan border. Air power and air defence capabilities
have been greatly enhanced and a network of roads sanctioned.

But little of
this has come up on the ground yet, especially communications infrastructure.
Without a road network, the cruel Himalayan terrain reduces even the largest
divisions to isolated groups of soldiers sitting on widely separated hilltops.
For decades, New Delhi has failed to speed up road building, blaming in turn
state governments for not providing land; the environment ministry for blocking
construction; the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) for lacking capacity to take
on so many projects at the same time; geological difficulties; and even the
Chinese for blocking road construction close to the border.

New
Delhi must initiate an emergency inter-agency drive to cut through the
difficulties and cut the roads through the hills. A Strategic Roads Plan
already exists, crafted by Shyam Saran, a former special advisor to the prime
minister who invested years of tramping around the borders into this
comprehensive document. The BRO roads, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and
the special border area schemes need to be coordinated to optimise effort and
expense. And a high-powered government panel, perhaps a group of ministers
(GoM), must be charged with implementing the scheme in a time-bound manner.

Until this network of new Indian roads substantially changes the military equation
on the ground, India has little choice but to hasten softly in its military
build-up. Beijing's proposal to freeze troop levels on the LAC stems from the
confidence that its enviable infrastructure in Tibet acts as a force
multiplier, permitting its relatively small number of troops to concentrate and
disperse rapidly, running rings around India's immobile pickets. While Beijing
can appear reasonable in asking for troop levels to be frozen, it cannot
legitimately request a freeze on road building, which also benefits border
populations. And as India changes ground realities, it must face the current
ones, too - and keep talking with the Chinese army to ensure that tensions do
not get out of hand.

Friday, 26 April 2013

An IAF AN-32 landing at Nyoma in Sept 09, activating the crucial landing ground in Ladakh

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 26th Apr 13

China’s intrusion into the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector, at
the northern tip of India just below the towering Karakoram Pass, is a
demonstration of anger --- certainly that of the People’s Liberation Army
(PLA), and possibly that of Beijing as well --- at the Indian Army’s third
surge towards the Sino-Indian border.

The first Indian move to militarily occupy the Sino-Indian
border began after 1957, when New Delhi discovered that China had built a
nearly 200-kilometre-long highway through the Aksai Chin, a high altitude
desert that abuts Ladakh on the east. Belatedly realizing the need to establish
a presence along its claim lines in Ladakh and the North East Frontier Agency
(NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh), New Delhi rushed troops into these unknown areas
in what was known as the “Forward Policy”. With the PLA fearing that India was
backing a massive Tibetan rebellion, and with that apprehension inflamed by the
refuge that New Delhi granted the Dalai Lama India in 1959, the Indian move
forward degenerated into war.

The second Indian move to the border began in 1982. Army
chief, General KV Krishna Rao persuaded Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that
twenty years of fearful holding back had to end and the Indian Army moved forward
again, deploying in strength over the next four years in Tawang and Chushul. In
1986, a Chinese patrol pitched up tents in a disputed area called Wangdung,
north of Tawang, triggering a furious Indian Army build up that came close to
actual hostilities. China sought a flag meeting; the PLA realized that it was
dealing with a very different Indian Army from the one it had whipped in 1962.
Diplomatic engagement led to Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit to China. In 1993, Prime
Minister Narasimha Rao visited Beijing and signed an “Agreement on the
Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in
the India-China Border Area,” which maintains a largely peaceful border even
today.

We are now in the middle of the third Indian surge to the
border and, like the previous two, it is being contested by China. It began
with the raising of two Indian mountain divisions for the defence of Arunachal
Pradesh and with the activation of three Sukhoi-30 fighter bases in the
Brahmaputra valley. Simultaneously, seven Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) in
Arunachal were refurbished, permitting their use for forward replenishment and
for heliborne operations. Two armoured brigades are currently being raised and
a mountain strike corps will begin raising shortly. The improvement of road
infrastructure forms a part of this effort.

In Ladakh, too, India is thickening its presence on the Line
of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto
border with China. The arrival of 8 Mountain Division in Kargil during the
Kargil War freed a full brigade for the LAC. With militancy reducing in
Kashmir, another brigade moved out to Chushul. Landing grounds were activated
in Nyoma and DBO and roads started coming up to connect isolated posts.

All this raises China’s hackles. Road building near the LAC,
especially in the areas of Chushul-Demchok and a new alignment that will
connect DBO, has been steadfastly resisted by the PLA. Chinese patrols objected
to new bunkers built by the Indian Army near Chushul several years ago; like
today, the PLA retaliated by establishing a camp on India’s side of the LAC,
forcing the Indian Army to negotiate a settlement. The current PLA encampment
at DBO is again retaliation for Indian Army defences constructed elsewhere.

The Indian Army has no good options in DBO, unlike in 1986 during
the Wangdung intrusion. Then, the army was close to its road head and the
helicopter base at Tawang, permitting a massive build up that quickly dominated
the Chinese camp (that the Chinese are still there is another matter). Today
India has no surface link to DBO, and the DBO landing ground permits only a
limited build up. In contrast the Chinese enjoy a road link to their camp
across the wide Depsang Plain. Like in 1962, India’s logistical build up has
not kept up with the operational build up. Now there is little option but to
negotiate a Chinese withdrawal.

China has clearly signaled its discomfort with India’s troop
build up, submitting a draft proposal for a freeze on troop levels that will
solidify and make permanent India’s disadvantage along the LAC. The Ministry of
External Affairs (MEA), eager to create “deliverables” that could create an air
of success around Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to India next month, is
studying the proposal.

China’s strategy is evident: to confine Indian strategic
attention to the Sino-Indian border, preventing New Delhi from looking beyond
at Tibet and Xinjiang, China’s most sensitive pressure points. Beijing
apprehends --- with the fearfulness of a state that knows its weaknesses ---
that signing a border settlement would free India from the burden of having to
continually lay claim to, and physically defend, a challenged border. China
realizes that a settlement would change the fundamental nature of the New
Delhi-Beijing engagement. No longer a supplicant, India could raise the issue
of Tibet, a lead that western democracies would quickly follow.

So far, India’s military, bureaucracy and political elite have
fallen for China’s game, directing their energies into placating China in the
hope of a border settlement. Realizing our ill preparedness to defend our territorial
claims has created endemic strategic defensiveness. New Delhi remains
disinclined to change the game by challenging China on Tibet.

This remains so despite frequent reminders of China’s
vulnerabilities. On Tuesday, 21 people were killed near Kashgar, in Xinjiang, in
a violent armed stand off. The anger against Beijing in its restive border
regions was again underlined on Wednesday when two Tibetan monks in Sichuan set
themselves afire, adding to the gory tally of more than 100 self-immolations
since 2011. China has flooded Xinjiang and Tibet with black-suited armed
militias, whose members now carry portable fire extinguishers to douse Tibetans
who are attempting self-immolation. But there remains widespread resentment at Beijing’s
increasingly colonial presence in these areas.

In contrast, India’s border population along the LAC remains
heartwarmingly Indian. In Ladakh, Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal
Pradesh, despite New Delhi’s inexplicable neglect, pro-India sentiment is high
and China is regarded with distrust and suspicion that is constantly reinforced
from across the border.

Thursday, 25 April 2013

Proposed transfers after Lt Gen KT Parnaik's retirement on 30th Jun will place key hotspots under commanders unfamiliar with the situation

By Ajai Shukla

Business
Standard, 25th Apr 13

As a tense
stand-off continues on the Sino-Indian border in Ladakh, where a Chinese patrol
has apparently established a camp eight km inside India, the Ministry of
Defence (MoD) is confronted with a difficult decision — an inexplicable Army
proposal to shift top generals, which would see key hotspots being placed under
new commanders, unfamiliar with the situation.

The proposal,
personally cleared by the Army Chief, General Bikram Singh, would leave Ladakh
without both its top generals on July 1. That day, the commander of the
Leh-based 14 Corps, Lieutenant General (Lt Gen) Rajan Bakshi, who is handling
the ongoing crisis at Daulat Beg Oldi, would be shifted to Lucknow. The same
day, his boss, the Northern Army Commander, Lt Gen K T Parnaik, will retire.

Replacing
Parnaik in Udhampur would be Lt Gen Sanjeev Chachra, currently commanding the
Western Command in Chandimandir. Also proposed for transfer on July 1 is Lt
Gen Anil Chait, commander of the Lucknow-based Central Command, which looks
after the disputed Uttarakhand border with Tibet. From this key operational
command, Lt Gen Chait would move as Chief of Integrated Defence Staff to the Chairman
Chiefs of Staff Committee, a mouthful that is abbreviated to Chief of
Integrated Service Command (CISC).

Replacing Chait
in Lucknow would be the newly promoted Lt Gen Rajan Bakshi. While Bakshi is
entirely familiar with Ladakh, he would be new to the operational situation in
Central Command.

The Army Chief’s
proposal would also leave the crucial Chandimandir-based Western Command with a
new commander. Replacing Chachra in Chandimandir would be Lt Gen Philip
Campose, currently heading the Army’s Perspective Planning (PP) Directorate,
who would move to Chandimandir on promotion.

Two top Army
generals and a senior MoD official have expressed serious concern to Business
Standard over these proposed changes, which would leave Northern, Western and
Central commands in new hands during a sensitive period.

“We don’t know
how this Chinese intrusion into Daulat Beg Oldi will play out. The Chinese
could pack up and leave tomorrow or they could stay on, forcing us into a major
operation like in 1986, when they intruded into Wangdung, in Arunachal Pradesh.
Either way, it is ridiculous to change the two top commanders in a key sector
simultaneously,” said a senior MoD official.

MoD officials
are wondering why GOC 14 Corps, Lt Gen Bakshi, cannot be sidestepped from
Leh to Udhampur, taking over Northern Command from Lt Gen Parnaik instead of
being shifted to Lucknow. This would allow continuity in handling the situation
on the Sino-Indian border.

The ball is
currently in MoD’s court, which can approve or reject the Army’s proposal.
There is serious apprehension within MoD, since the government’s Allocation of
Business Rules, 1961, squarely makes the defence secretary, as head of the
Department of Defence, responsible for India’s defence.

“It is hard for
the defence secretary to forget what happened in 1962, after Lt Gen B M Kaul
was appointed commander of 4 Corps in NEFA, as the situation was escalating.
Many historians blame the severity of India’s defeat in NEFA on the appointment
of Lt Gen Kaul,” said a senior MoD official.

A senior general
also pointed that Army Headquarters has always emphasised the importance of
“tenure stability” of Army commanders. According to current promotion rules, a
lieutenant general can only be promoted to Army commander (i.e. to head
Northern Command, Western Command, etc.) if he has at least two years of
residual service left before retirement. This was to ensure that an Army
commander spends enough time in command, so that he is familiar with the
operating environment in which his command operates.

“Now, they want
to post out the Western and Central Army commanders, who have barely completed
a year in their jobs. The new commanders would have to start afresh,” said a
serving general.

MoD officials
note that transferring Army commanders has proved controversial. In 2008, there
was a furore when then Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor posted Lt Gen H S Panag,
then the Northern commander, out from Udhampur to the Central Army in Lucknow.
This took place after Lt Gen Panag initiated inquiries into dubious financial
contracts that had been entered into during Gen Kapoor’s tenure at Udhampur.

Commenting on
the proposal, Army Headquarters said, “There are three Army commanders’
vacancies that have to be filled and so we have proposed the right officer for
the right job.”

It is not clear
whether this means that the Army regards Lt Gen Chachra, an infantry officer,
as ill-suited to command the mechanized-heavy Western Command; or whether Lt
Gen Bakshi, an armoured corps officer who has successfully commanded an
infantry division and corps, is regarded as unsuited for Northern Command.